Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphein. It has also been called brachygraphy, from Greek brachys, and tachygraphy, from Greek tachys, depending on whether compression or speed of writing is the goal.
Many forms of shorthand exist. A typical shorthand system provides symbols or abbreviations for words and common phrases, which can allow someone well-trained in the system to write as quickly as people speak. Abbreviation methods are alphabet-based and use different abbreviating approaches. Many journalists use shorthand writing to quickly take notes at press conferences or other similar scenarios. In computerized settings, several autocomplete programs, standalone or integrated in text editors, based on word lists, also include a shorthand function for frequently used phrases.
Shorthand was used more widely in the past, before the invention of recording and dictation machines. Shorthand was considered an essential part of secretarial training and police work and was useful for journalists. Although the primary use of shorthand has been to record oral dictation and other types of verbal communication, some systems are used for compact expression. For example, healthcare professionals might use shorthand notes in medical charts and correspondence. Shorthand notes were typically temporary, intended either for immediate use or for later typing, data entry, or transcription to longhand. Longer-term uses do exist, such as encipherment; diaries are a common example.
History
Classical antiquity
The earliest known indication of shorthand systems is from the Parthenon in Ancient Greece, where a mid-4th century BC inscribed marble slab was found. This shows a writing system primarily based on vowels, using certain modifications to indicate consonants. Hellenistic tachygraphy is reported from the 2nd century BC onwards, though there are indications that it might be older. The oldest datable reference is a contract from Middle Egypt, stating that Oxyrhynchos gives the "semeiographer" Apollonios for two years to be taught shorthand writing. Hellenistic tachygraphy consisted of word stem signs and word ending signs. Over time, many syllabic signs were developed.In Ancient Rome, Marcus Tullius Tiro, a slave and later a freedman of Cicero, developed the Tironian notes so that he could write down Cicero's speeches. Plutarch in his "Life of Cato the Younger" records that Cicero, during a trial of some insurrectionists in the senate, employed several expert rapid writers, whom he had taught to make figures comprising numerous words in a few short strokes, to preserve Cato's speech on this occasion. The Tironian notes consisted of Latin word stem abbreviations and of word ending abbreviations. The original Tironian notes consisted of about 4,000 signs, but new signs were introduced, so that their number might increase to as many as 13,000. In order to have a less complex writing system, a syllabic shorthand script was sometimes used. After the decline of the Roman Empire, the Tironian notes were no longer used to transcribe speeches, though they were still known and taught, particularly during the Carolingian Renaissance. After the 11th century, however, they were mostly forgotten.
When many monastery libraries were secularized in the course of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, long-forgotten manuscripts of Tironian notes were rediscovered.
Imperial China
In imperial China, clerks used an abbreviated, highly cursive form of Chinese characters to record court proceedings and criminal confessions. These records were used to create more formal transcripts. One cornerstone of imperial court proceedings was that all confessions had to be acknowledged by the accused's signature, personal seal, or thumbprint, requiring fast writing. Versions of this technique survived in clerical professions into the modern day and, influenced by Western shorthand methods, some new methods were invented.Europe and North America
An interest in shorthand or "short-writing" developed towards the end of the 16th century in England. In 1588, Timothy Bright published his Characterie; An Arte of Shorte, Swifte and Secrete Writing by Character which introduced a system with 500 arbitrary symbols each representing one word. Bright's book was followed by a number of others, including Peter Bales' The Writing Schoolemaster in 1590, John Willis's Art of Stenography in 1602, Edmond Willis's An abbreviation of writing by character in 1618, and Thomas Shelton's Short Writing in 1626.Shelton's system became very popular and is well known because it was used by Samuel Pepys for his diary and for many of his official papers, such as his letter copy books. It was also used by Isaac Newton in some of his notebooks. Shelton borrowed heavily from his predecessors, especially Edmond Willis. Each consonant was represented by an arbitrary but simple symbol, while the five vowels were represented by the relative positions of the surrounding consonants. Thus the symbol for B with symbol for T drawn directly above it represented "bat", while B with T below it meant "but"; top-right represented "e", middle-right "i", and lower-right "o". A vowel at the end of a word was represented by a dot in the appropriate position, while there were additional symbols for initial vowels. This basic system was supplemented by further symbols representing common prefixes and suffixes.
One drawback of Shelton's system was that there was no way to distinguish long and short vowels or diphthongs; so the b-a-t sequence could mean "bat", or "bait", or "bate", while b-o-t might mean "boot", or "bought", or "boat". The reader needed to use the context to work out which alternative was meant. The main advantage of the system was that it was easy to learn and to use. It was popular, and under the two titles of Short Writing and Tachygraphy, Shelton's book ran to more than 20 editions between 1626 and 1710.
Shelton's chief rivals were Theophilus Metcalfe's Stenography or Short Writing which was in its "55th edition" by 1721, and Jeremiah Rich's system of 1654, which was published under various titles including The penns dexterity compleated. Rich's system was used by George Treby chairman of the House of Commons Committee of Secrecy investigating the Popish Plot. Another English shorthand system creator of the 17th century was William Mason who published Arts Advancement in 1682.
File:Heinrich Roller Grabstein.jpg|thumb|upright|Tombstone of Heinrich Roller, inventor of a German shorthand system, with a sample of his shorthand
Modern-looking geometric shorthand was introduced with John Byrom's New Universal Shorthand of 1720. Samuel Taylor published a similar system in 1786, the first English shorthand system to be used all over the English-speaking world. Thomas Gurney published Brachygraphy in the mid-18th century. In 1834 in Germany, Franz Xaver Gabelsberger published his Gabelsberger shorthand. Gabelsberger based his shorthand on the shapes used in German cursive handwriting rather than on the geometrical shapes that were common in the English stenographic tradition.
Taylor's system was superseded by Pitman shorthand, first introduced in 1837 by English teacher Isaac Pitman, and improved many times since. Pitman's system has been used all over the English-speaking world and has been adapted to many other languages, including Latin. Pitman's system uses a phonemic orthography. For this reason, it is sometimes known as phonography, meaning "sound writing" in Greek. One of the reasons this system allows fast transcription is that vowel sounds are optional when only consonants are needed to determine a word. The availability of a full range of vowel symbols, however, makes complete accuracy possible. Isaac's brother Benn Pitman, who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, was responsible for introducing the method to America. The record for fast writing with Pitman shorthand is 350 wpm during a two-minute test by Nathan Behrin in 1922.
In the United States and some other parts of the world, it was largely superseded by Gregg shorthand, which was first published in 1888 by John Robert Gregg. This system was influenced by the handwriting shapes that Gabelsberger had introduced. Gregg's shorthand, like Pitman's, is phonetic, but has the simplicity of being "light-line." Pitman's system uses thick and thin strokes to distinguish related sounds, while Gregg's uses only thin strokes and makes some of the same distinctions by the length of the stroke. In fact, Gregg claimed joint authorship in another shorthand system published in pamphlet form by one Thomas Stratford Malone; Malone, however, claimed sole authorship and a legal battle ensued. The two systems use very similar, if not identical, symbols; however, these symbols are used to represent different sounds. For instance, on page 10 of the manual is the word d i m 'dim'; however, in the Gregg system, the spelling would actually mean n u k or 'nook'.
Andrew J. Graham was a phonotypist operating in the period between the emergence of Pitman's and Gregg's systems. In 1854 he published a short-lived phonotypy journal called The Cosmotype, subtitled "devoted to that which will entertain usefully, instruct, and improve humanity", and several other monographs about phonography. In 1857 he published his own Pitman-like "Graham's Brief Longhand" that saw wide adoption in the United States in the late 19th century. He published a translation of the New Testament. His method landed him in a 1864 copyright infringement lawsuit against Benn Pitman in Ohio. Graham died in 1895 and was buried in Montclair's Rosedale Cemetery; even as late as 1918 his company Andrew J. Graham & Co continued to market his method.
In his youth, Woodrow Wilson had mastered the Graham system and even corresponded with Graham in Graham. Throughout his life, Wilson continued to develop and employ his own Graham system writing, to the point that by the 1950s, when the Graham method had all but disappeared, Wilson scholars had trouble interpreting his shorthand. In 1960 an 84-year-old anachronistic shorthand expert Clifford Gehman managed to crack Wilson's shorthand, demonstrating on a translation of Wilson's acceptance speech for the 1912 presidential nomination.